Harry Potter Collectible Trading Cards :: Game Review

Grab your wand, study your spells and watch out for Severus Snape. The Harry Potter Trading Card Game (TCG) from Wizards of the Coast lets you compete with your friends with magic spells straight from the Harry Potter stories. Pick your wizard (or witch,) learn your lessons and get ready to board the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 3/4.

The game is all about you and a friend playing as two Hogwarts students trying to out-spell the other. You each pick a wizard or witch - Hermione, Harry, Ron, even Draco Malfoy - and play with a deck of cards that you use as your spells. You play lesson cards to let you cast spells and creature cards to harass your opponent. Your spells will knock them silly and special cards do other cool things. Your Spells and Creatures let you knock cards off of their deck until they run out. The first player to run out of cards loses.

The cards are nice. Each one is about something from the world of Harry Potter and has a picture. Some of the art is great. I especially like the Potions Exam picture but some of them are pretty cheesy. Hermione's card makes her look really dorky - in the books she sounds way cuter than her picture. Keep an eye out for special foil and hologram cards, they're totally rare.

Playing the game is a cinch. There are instructions on a big fold-out mat that teaches you the basics but by your third game you can skip the mat and just play on a table. It's way easier than MLB Showdown 2001 which needs a mat and space to roll dice, ugh. Everything is fast, fun and easy to figure out. You hardly even need the rules.

Harry Potter TCG League

Are the controls hard to learn?

It's a card game so nope. It does take about 20 minutes to learn to play, though.